Editorial Standards
Every dataset on plainschools is traced to its named public source and documented in our methodology. This is how the data framing, methodology, and corrections you read here are decided and maintained.
- PlainSchools
Education-data publisher · Official U.S. Department of Education data, transparently documented
PlainSchools is an independent education-data publisher covering K-12 public schools using data from the U.S. Department of Education. It turns the official federal record into detailed profiles, visualizations, and comparisons, covering resource distribution, enrollment, and funding, so families and researchers can understand educational patterns directly. Every figure is compiled from official source data and documented in the methodology, and PlainSchools accepts no payment from the schools, districts, or states it covers.
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PlainSchools is a data-journalism publisher: we compile records on more than 95,000 public schools from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, verify them against the official Common Core of Data releases (most recently the 2024-25 school universe), and present them in plain language. According to that federal source data, coverage spans all 50 states and DC. Editorial standards, sourcing, and how we handle corrections are described on our about and methodology pages.
Download the compiled NCES state extract: plainschools-state-summary.csv (same extract as /statistics).